Down time

Last day of work and then I'll be off for a week. It's been a tough summer. August which is usually a light month has been full and intense. I plan to spend the first couple of days cleaning out the far corner of the basement where the discarded toys live. I have a storage box for each kid in which I will save some of the special toys. I hope I remember what belongs to whom. I won an old teachers desk at the school district aution which needs a new coat of paint. I might tackle that too. Then again I might not.

Next I head off to a nearby state park where I have rented a cottage for three nights and four days of loafing. I have my fishing license and fishing pole. The boat rental is a short walk from the cabin and there are lots of trails to explore. The picture is of sunset bridge at the park. The planning is almost as fun as the doing.

The woods here are too dry to have a campfire. It would be a disappointment if it is too dry there next week but such is life. My planning includes a nightly campfire but reality is often something entirely different.

To my oldest daughter:

May no one ever hold you back again!! Enjoy your special day and know that you will be on my mind all throughout. I love you!
Your adoring Ma

Conferences: the final chapter

A few years ago, having sworn off one day wonder conferences, I went to a two day one not too far from home. It was being held at a resort nestled deep within a national forest. It was October, so even if the conference were bad, I should get in some good hikes. Actually what I do is more of an amble. That part was great.

Our speaker for both days, Dr. Happy, had just published a book on happiness but the course was on another topic. The first morning he crossed the room to greet me as I entered the room. I was surprised to say the least. We past polite pleasantries and that was it.

He was an amiable speaker who told amusing stories but I noticed that his treatment stories all dated from his residency. It made me seriously wonder how long it had been since he'd treated anybody. He also name dropped a lot. And then he'd pull this annoying teaching trick where he'd set up a false choice eg How many people think this is A and how many people think this B? It would end up to be C because he hadn't given us all the information. I never raised my hand for that kind of silliness. Perhaps he noticed.

On the second day, I decided to buy his new book anyway and during a break I approached him to sign it. When I made my request, book and pen in hand, he became mildly agitated. Dr. Happy was definitely not happy. He launched into a rapid fire explanation. This was the wrong time to ask him to sign the book. The correct time was at the end of the day, at which time he'd be more than happy to sign the book, but he didn't have time to do it now. I'm totally puzzled. In the time it took him to explain why he couldn't sign the book now, he could have signed it. I bid him adieu, turned and walked away. As an afterthought he called out to me thanking me for buying his book.

I didn't stay afterwards for his signature because I had a fairly long drive ahead of me. I did read his book later. Now it collects dust on my shelves along with a lot of other pretty useless books. I know I haven't recommended it to anyone since nor have I given it out to any patients. I suspect Dr. Happy yells at his kids at lot.

More fun at conferences or Good Enough Mother gets attacked again

A few years after the hypnosis workshop, I decided to play on the international psychoanalytic scene. It was actually a really fun conference. Psychoanalysts do like to pamper themselves. There I had the pleasure of interacting with psychoanalysts from all over the world which was just fascinating.

One day, during a coffee break out in the hall, I was introduced to an analyst from South America. She was very nervous because in a few minutes she was heading up a panel discussion on patient confidentiality and she needed some case studies as grist. Suddenly she turned to me asking if I had ever encountered any difficult situations involving patient confidentiality. I said as a matter of fact I had just encountered one and gave her a quick synopsis. She brightened up and then asked if I would present the case to the panel. I agreed and she led me down the hall to the room where the panel would take place. I'm grinning inside thinking "wait until I tell the folks back home about this".

The panel was made up of South American psychoanalysts from several countries. There was an interpreter who translated into English. Anyway soon it was my turn. I stood in place and as best as I could told the story, pausing for translation, of a couple TA and I were treating. The wife had come in to get TA's help in telling her husband that she planned to leave her husband of 15 years for her new lover. TA worked with the wife and I began work with the husband. The tricky part came early on when he asked me point blank if I thought his wife was having an affair. I had expected this question might arise so I simply asked what he thought. I recall a woman analyst to my right made the "ca-ching!" motion. I gathered she liked my approach.

The panel began to grill me at this point. A tedious professorial type droned on and on, not doing much to illuminate anyone. What surprised me then was a woman analyst from a distinguished institute who got extremely agitated about the procedure. She wasn't questioning the treatment, but the orthodoxy of TA and I working together. The more I said, the more hot under the collar she became. I thought I was about to get banished from the conference, and sent home in disgrace. But I knew our results had been impeccable and I was very pleased with the work had been done. After all a marriage not only had been salvaged but revitalized, so I really didn't care what she thought. It was just that her anger was so unexpected. Finally a Canadian psychoanalyst commented that my working arrangement was not unusual in North America. My attacker backed down. I later thanked the Canadian for helping me out.

This strange encounter grew stranger still the next day. I was on my way out of the hotel as the woman analyst from the panel was coming in. She saw me, smiled and ran up to me. She then hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks. She mumbled something complimentary to me and whisked passed me. Huh?? I took that for an apology. I keep wondering how I manage to get into these situations.

Good Enough Mother gets attacked: Monster Spray

A number of years ago I attended a clinical hypnosis workshop on the west coast. The faculty was among the best in the field and our classes were kept small. Over dinner one evening, several us attendees began to share some of our tricks of trade for treating kids. I said that I found Monster Spray most useful. It was my secret weapon which was discovered by accident one day when I was working with a small boy who had horrible nightmares.

I asked the boy to draw a picture of his scary dream on the chalkboard. He drew a big monster with great big teeth. I said we need to get rid of him. I meant, get rid of that bad monster completely. I grabbed a bottle of diluted window spray and handed it to the kid to spray at his monster drawing. I then handed him a towel to wipe away his monster. He really got into spraying and wiping away his monster. I found out that this ended his monster nightmares forever. I tweaked the formula a bit, and soon Monster Spray became a staple of my arsenal against bad dreams of all sorts: witches, giants, angry T-rex, giant spiders, wolves, and spookies. A variant was a take-home little spray bottle which was filled ceremoniously in front of the kid from my great big bottle of Monster spray. The kid would buy a bottle from me using one of the pennies or nickles which Mom and Dad had" just happened" to have given him earlier in the day for being a good kid. The kid could then kill off any monsters that lurked under the bed or inside closets at home.

The next morning our workshop instructor Dr. Trance was discussing common difficulties we might encounter with kids and how we could use the child's fantasy world to construct a therapeutic metaphor. He mentioned in passing his son's recurring nightmares, at which my colleagues snapped their heads in my direction crying out "Monster Spray!". Dr. Trance asked what monster spray was and I explained. He got very incensed and was highly critical because he felt the child should select the metaphor with which to eliminate the monster. That's fine, methinks, but monster spray works like a charm. I then pointed out that the dreams were already a product of the child's unconscious mind. He nearly sprang from his chair yelling at me "There IS no unconscious mind!!! There are only unconscious processes!" Inside I'm thinking "Hey bud, haven't you read any Erickson?" but this was not a moment for logic. The rest of the morning he continued to glare at me and he seemed to hate my guts. Needless to say, the lunch break was most welcome.

But after lunch, Dr. Trance was suddenly very kind to me and went out of his way to be helpful to me. I took it for an apology.TA thinks he was mad because I'd figured out a simple way to get rid of a child's bad dreams and he hadn't. I'm wondering if a bottle of Monster Spray appeared soon after at the Trance household to help young master Trance. I don't treat many kids these days, but my bottle of Monster Spray is displaced prominently in my office. You'd be surprised at the number of adults who ask me about it. When the story is told, they shake their heads saying " I sure wish I had some of that stuff when I was a kid".

Going to conferences

There is so much drivel, sham, smoke and mirrors out there that people needing help with emotional problems don't really know where to turn. I have worked with one woman for many years. Before me, she had seen something like five different people of various perspectives, running the gamut from a classic on-the-couch psychoanalyst to a new age guru of some ilk. One" healer" took her way up in the mountains, where he promptly had a melt-down. His disciples had to haul him down and take him home. I've told her she needs to write a book some day about her adventures with head shrinkers. It's always good to find out about a patient's previous treatment. If nothing else I learn what pitfalls to avoid.

I go to conferences and workshops where the posturing is unreal. The workshop is a vehicle to sell the speaker's new book, intensive (and expensive) week-long workshop or CD series. Many one-day-wonder courses are simply there to meet CME requirements. No one is there to teach, just to provide a service which is the selling of continuing education credits. It's a joke.

A while back I went to a one day course on grief. It was so incredibly stupid. A ridiculous amount of time was spent trying to delineate between normal and pathological grief. What bunk! Grief is grief. John Bowlby describes it best in his meaty book Loss: Sadness and Depression. Our lecturer lived and worked in a university town and described treating a college freshman who had fallen apart shortly after school started. The kid, she felt, was grieving for home. Hmm, it has been said that if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem resembles a nail.

During lunch with a couple of social workers, I casually mentioned that if I were treating that kid, I'd be considering schizophrenia. Some kids can do decently at home where there's good structure but can't make it at college on their own without the constant support from Mom and Dad. The social workers were astonished. Why yes, the kid was the perfect age for the onset of schizophrenia! These professionals work in a major university. They teach social work and treat students there. I really wondered what these people do.

The first conference I attended as a lay analyst in training was put on by a family systems institute. I met a young psychotherapist there from my neck of the woods. I invited her to join me for lunch. Waiting in line for a table, I pulled out a book I'd picked up at the conference book table. She asked about it. I explained that I bought it because it had something about children who had a brother or sister die. She was deer-in-the-headlights stunned. She said she had two brothers who had died, one when she was two and another when she was fifteen. Oh boy, I thought. This is going to be a working lunch. And it was.

She told me more about the deaths of her brothers, her mom's depression, about her work and then about her two failed marriages. With sudden insight, she asked if her difficulty with men might be connected somehow to her dead brothers. I told her most definitely it was.

I asked her if she'd been in treatment. Her training had not required students to go through analysis or psychotherapy. Hmm, that means they are just as screwed up after years of education as they were when they entered the program. She had consulted a Gestalt therapist which was interesting but I gathered not too helpful. Of course, the overwhelming tragedies of her childhood were never addressed because no one ever asked. Once again I wondered what these people do.

Chapter 2: Good Enough Mother gets attacked.

The Barista

I am currently enjoying Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller of Blue Like Jazz fame. Within a conversation about gambling, Miller's friend, the owner of a coffee shop, observed that

Nobody he knows who is successful gambles; rather they work hard, they accept the facts of reality and they enjoy life as it is.

Miller: But the facts of reality stink.

Barista : Reality is like fine wine. It will not appeal to children.

Link-on

Some interesting links:

Lumosity is a cool and fun series of mind stimulating games which are designed to improve memory and mental speed. Many years of poor eyesight has led me to mistrust my vision. These exercises are forcing me to rely on my eyes working both central and peripheral vision. The games which progressively speed up are helping me overcome some residual performance anxiety. I am using the 2 week free trial and can sense improvement already, alas not yet in my daily on line trivia game.

Link number two is the Hobbit Rune generator . Good Enough Mother is depicted above in Feanorian. This is like Pig Latin only better.

And from my favorite shrink blog, The Last Psychiatristt, a test to see how well you can read faces. About a year ago I actually bought Paul Eckman's training CD. I'd went through the program and didn't think I'd learned much. Seeing as I read all the expressions correctly, something sunk in. Trust your unconscious to learn a lot more than you expect.

Weirdness outbreak

This week a weirdness epidemic broke out. I can only attribute it to the heat wave and perhaps the meteor showers. An atmospheric double whammy can throw people way off balance. I recall an unusual month with two full moons and another time when the vernal equinox and a full moon occurred in the same week. I suspect 911 dispatchers could tell some really interesting stories about this week and no doubt the emergency rooms have been hopping.

Broken hearts, broken marriages, legal threats, fights, rages, emotional meltdowns, physical malfunction, rampant confusion...it's been unrelenting all week. I'm spent, however I still have one more day of work. TA, in a moment of silliness, left plastic flies on everyone's desks yesterday. One secretary complained "That's so sixth grade ". Well, it made me smile and I found myself trying to remember the theme to "Superfly". Couldn't pull it up, so I hummed "I'll Fly Away". I tell everyone to seriously pump up their water intake and have been following my own advice. Being adequately hydrated helps tremendously. Water balloons or squirt guns would be good too.

And my life has never been the same....

Happy 26th Birthday to my dear youngest daughter!

Fraud and good service

Last week someone stole one of my credit card numbers. GAP called me inquiring if I had made a certain on-line purchase. When I said I hadn't, they said they'd cancel the order and suggested I contact American Express. I did and found out there were four unauthorized charges on the same day. The account was promptly closed, the stolen orders canceled and withing 24 hours I had a new card. I was pleased the fraud detectors at GAP were so vigilant, but puzzled as to how the thieves got my number seeing as the last time I used it was to book a flight to a conference using the American Express travel services. I have no idea how someone got a hold of the number. Youngest daughter had the same thing happen with a newly issued American Express card. Someone "bought" an armload of iPods with her card, which instantly set off the fraud meters. In both cases, there was no haggling about the unauthorized charges.

Amazon also gave me good service this week. I ordered some pressies for daughter's boyfriend which according to UPS tracking were delivered but were never received by the birthday boy. Amazon has replaced them, no questions asked. I was impressed.

On a different note, I had to laugh when a new shipment of talking books arrived for my mother. These were ordered many months ago. Sadly she can no longer operate the tape machine or follow the plot of a novel. Keep in mind, she is a wobbly 90 year old who lives in a nursing home.The titles are:

- Nowhere to Run
- The Case of the Dangerous Dowager
- Wisdom Sits in Places
- Breaking Her Fall

Nothing to sneeze at

TA repeatedly thunks me on the head to remind me that I cannot/must not accord more to others than is warranted. I should not expect others to think and behave like me. Obvious, you might say. I am learning but then there are those moments.

Not long ago I was talking to a man who says that he really wants a girlfriend. His batting average with women is abysmal. He is clueless how to approach a woman. For example, he took one young lady out for a cup of coffee and within ten minutes was grilling her about her desire for children. She said she'd like kids some day and wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. He told her he didn't make enough money for her to do that. She was totally stunned. She didn't recall asking him to father her child. Any possible future with her ended right there.

He chews tobacco. He's asked me many times if girls mind chew. I said that a lot do. He's still chewing and spitting. He also works with his hands. I've pointed out that I know that it is just grease under his fingernails but a new girl might not know that. He has never owned a nail brush.

He asked me if he needed to buy new boots. Looking at them, it seemed that they just needed a good polishing. He commented that his father polished his boots every week before going to church, but it seems he did not have any shoe polish nor did he know how to polish shoes.

Next I asked him if he carried a knife. I knew he did. It's good to be able to answer one question right. Noting his bare wrist, I pointed out that a gentleman wears a watch. I knew he might not to wear one at work because he handled heavy machinery. Still a man ought to know what time it was. Maybe a pocket watch would work for him.

Next came this conversation:

Me:You do carry a bandanna or handkerchief, don't you?
Him: My Dad always carries one.
Me: But, do you?
Him: No
Me: So what do you use when you need to wipe your nose?
Him: (blowing his nose into his hand) This!
Me: A gentleman always carries a handkerchief.
Him: They do?
Me: Yup, so he's ready if he needs to wipe his nose or get the sweat off his brow.
Him sneezes into his right hand.
Me: umm, I don't think anyone would want to shake your hand after that.
Him: They would, if I didn't tell them.
Me: I doubt if any girl would want to hold that hand either. You need to start carrying a handkerchief.

Now this is man has a two years of college under his belt. He did not grow up in poverty either. Mom and Dad were solidly middle-class people, but some basic lessons never were learned.

I caught myself sniffing as I typed this entry. Truth be told I am a recovering sniffer. For some reason, when growing up nobody told me to blow my nose when I was sniffling. I just sniffed the snot back up into my nose, which only means it rolled back down a few minutes later. I knew to carry a tissue or a hankie, but isn't it curious, in a home where appearance and good manners mattered a great deal, that no one said that sniffling is annoying? Kind of odd, I'd say. I learned to say please and thank you. I wore white gloves. I was taught to curtsy but I didn't learn I should discreetly blow my nose when I began sniffling.